Chapter Ten Maneuvers

  Jiang Baili and I leisurely finished lunch at the artillery command center, only to see Yang Jie leading a large group of officers back, dusty and windblown. As they "got moving", I slipped out to take a look at the rarely seen large cannons. Little Ma introduced them one by one:

  "The latest model of quick-firing mountain gun, designed by Krupp and manufactured by Bofors in Sweden, with a caliber of 20 x 75, weighing only 1,500 catties, has a range of over 9,000 meters, with a frighteningly high rate of fire, this is the most common type of cannon used by the Central Army."

  "It was stopped here in the morning is a Japanese-made 38-style field gun, also 75 caliber, weighing 1900 catties, with a range of 8200 meters."

  "Those two big guys lined up over there are Krupp 32 times 150 caliber howitzers, the gun weighs 13,000 catties and the shell weighs nearly 90 catties, with a range of 15,000 meters. Young master, your fortifications may not be able to withstand it!"

  "Of course, fortifications cannot withstand direct hits from heavy artillery. In the face of heavy artillery cover, all I can strive for is a ratio of losses."

  "Near the construction site is Rheinmetall 37mm anti-tank gun, close-range direct fire against fortifications shouldn't be bad either; there's also a 150mm howitzer over there. Hehe, I think Mr. Bai wants to blast Young Master's position flat."

  "What is this?" Seeing two teams of soldiers carrying something into the fortification zone from a distance.

  The little horse looked carefully with binoculars and told me: "It seems to be a simple wooden or bamboo dummy."

  "Ha! Mr. Jiang Baili is indeed well-prepared!" I turned my head and said to Jiang Baili, who was walking slowly towards me.

  "One battalion of German mountain guns, one battalion of Japanese mountain guns, and one battalion of 150mm howitzers; two battalions of Japanese field artillery; and a battery of German 150mm mortars. The plan is to divide Brother's fortifications into five zones for successive covering fire, putting the lives of the 400 'soldiers' within at stake. Finally, a battery of German 37mm anti-tank guns will sweep up."

  "You're really cruel, sir!"

  "Don't blame me, in Nanjing City alone there are at least over a hundred generals who want to 'eliminate' your fortifications!"

  I couldn't help but laugh and cry: "It's been half a year since I came to Nanjing, who would have thought that I became the target of public criticism?"

  At the appointed time, the two artillery generals began to assign firing tasks to each artillery commander.

  "The speakers were General Zhang Xiujing, Director of Artillery Monitoring, and General Zou Zuohua, Head of Artillery School Education."

  Considering past "shock" experiences, I whispered: "Let's stand a bit further away."

  Jiang Baili gave me a smile and left the generals, taking me another few dozen steps, approaching the top of the mountain where they held binoculars to observe.

  The 6th Artillery Regiment's field artillery group closest to us started moving first, with hundreds of artillerymen pulling mules and using manpower to push the eight Japanese-style field guns into their pre-set positions, adjusting their aim. As the artillery commander called out the final readings, the artillery officer shouted loudly: "1420 meters, Zone A, five rounds fired!"

  With a loud "boom", I hadn't yet seen which gun had fired, and with a thunderous roar, in an instant, the bunker where I had been fighting for over an hour was enveloped in a cloud of black smoke; more than ten seconds later, the artillery officer shouted loudly: "All guns, attention! Target area A, 1420 meters, ten rounds of rapid fire, repeat firing."

  Then the whole field artillery camp sang in unison, and a cluster of smoke rose from the middle of the artillery group. The sound of explosions and whistling sounds merged into one piece, and the mountain slope trembled slightly. I watched through binoculars as clusters of dark brown gunpowder smoke rose between the distant fortifications, only to be immediately dispersed by the gunpowder smoke after the next round of shells landed. Two minutes later, the artillery group stopped firing, and the smoke in the target area quickly dissipated.

  "It seems that the artillery fire in movies and TV shows is indeed fake. I took a look at the wild cannon group, which was more than 100 meters away, and I breathed heavily."

  Before I could calm down, the 3rd Mountain Artillery Regiment's mountain gun group in a relatively distant location opened fire immediately after. The firing speed of the 4 new-style quick-firing mountain guns was indeed impressive. Within one minute, the booming sounds of the cannons ended and the smoke caused by the 40 high-explosive shells also dispersed quickly. However, since it was at a relatively far distance, I had at least superficially recovered to normal.

  Then the Japanese-style 75mm mountain gun company of the Independent Mountain Artillery Regiment and the domestically-made 150mm heavy howitzer company of the Infantry Artillery Regiment fired in succession. After watching the live ammunition firing of four types of artillery, I finally understood that unless there is a flammable substance at the point of impact, the smoke formed by the shell will only be a cluster and will disperse almost immediately; it won't last for a long time.

  Yang Jie walked up the mountain slope, amidst the laughter of Jiang Baili. The two 150mm heavy howitzers of the 10th battalion were actually towed by a tractor to the foot of the mountain and deployed in a row. I looked at this farce and sighed: "Gentlemen, isn't this going too far?"

  Yang Jie burst out laughing and handed me a pair of artillery earplugs, which I quickly put on and tightly plugged my ears. Immediately, the earth-shaking roar penetrated through the tight seal of my ears, "Boom", "Boom", shaking me to the point where I was stumbling; fortunately, the country advocates for frugality, and the fifteen heavy artillery shells were really too expensive, so the deafening cannon fire stopped soon. I took off the earplugs, let out a long sigh, and my ears still had a buzzing echo, and my heart was still feeling very uncomfortable.

  Looking at my pale face, Jiang Baili smiled and said to Yang Jie: "It seems that we have made a big joke, brother is still going to the artillery command department to rest for a while, it will be fine after a while, no need to accompany us to see the effect."

  "Alright." I walked back to the command center with a wry smile, fortunately, the main force had already entered the target area, at least it wasn't too embarrassing!

  After sitting for a while, under the encouragement of hot tea, hot towels and the eyes of the guards, I finally came back to life. Accompanied by several artillery officers who had just finished cleaning up their big guns, I went to see the "battle results" of the artillerymen.

  Walking slowly up the mountain slope, the first thing I saw was a simple wooden dummy blasted out of a trench by a shell. A section of log served as the body, a head embedded in a piece of wood served as the head, and four wooden strips nailed to the log served as limbs, but this one had already lost "one hand and one foot". I smiled and continued walking forward.

  The first trench was pockmarked with shell holes, but except for direct hits that caused damage, the rest remained intact. The "soldiers" placed in single-person foxholes were also largely unscathed, except when hit directly by heavy artillery. In contrast, many of the "soldiers" in the trenches had been "disembowelled", leaving officers and commanders aghast.

  The second trench's machine gun emplacements were similarly unaffected, except for those that collapsed under multiple hits from mountain guns. The multi-person foxholes were mostly intact, although some had been shaken by near-misses, causing their occupants to be scattered.

  The third trench was conspicuous but largely unscathed, having only been hit directly by heavy artillery on the ridgeline. The reverse slope was similarly unaffected, with only a few shell craters dotting the landscape.

  The instructors were watching with relish when suddenly a loud "boom" shook us, scaring us into hastily lying down. The artillery officers had just gotten up when another, even closer explosion made them dive to the ground again. Afterwards, we were chased back up by a burst of laughter and found that it was the anti-tank cannon on the other side firing directly at the reinforced machine gun bunker. Little Ma couldn't help but complain: "Less than 200 meters direct fire at an earthen fortification? Too..."

  "Don't underestimate the earthwork designed by Zi An Xian Di, just now the high-explosive shells fired from the anti-warship gun only directly hit one shot into the shooting port, and the rest didn't even penetrate these few shelters; now it's using armor-piercing shells to shoot. The flat-shooting cannons and quick-firing cannons used by the Japanese army are generally not equipped with armor-piercing shells, which also have to be defeated in front of this kind of fortification."

  I took a look and it was General Zou ZuoHua, the head of education at the Army Artillery School, who had given a pep talk to artillery officers before the bombardment.

  "Yue Lou is right, I think the whole army should learn to build this kind of field fortification; I plan to fully implement it in the Army University," said Yang Jie, the Education Minister of the Army University.

  (Note: At that time, all military academy principals were concurrently held by Chiang Kai-shek, and each military school was actually responsible for the Minister of Education.)

  The generals were discussing among themselves when a cavalry officer suddenly rushed in on horseback, "Report to the generals, General von Falkenhausen and his party are entering the exercise area."

  "What? Didn't he go to the southwest with the Director-General for inspection?"

  "What's going on here? Wasn't it supposed to be kept from the advisory team?"

  "Everyone, don't panic! Quickly go and ask Messrs. Baili and Geng Guang how to respond!"

  When I saw him, without waiting for me, I hastily asked: "Who came with Falkenhausen?"

  "The general's aide-de-camp, two advisors, a naval lieutenant commander I didn't recognize, and one in a suit."

  I recall the experience of German advisors leaving China and returning to their home country, without leaking any military information to Japan; seeing Chiang and Yang walking towards us, deep in thought and conversation, then Chiang said: "Based on our long-term contact with the advisory team, we should believe that the German advisors will not leak military information to our enemies. As for reporting back to the German army, it doesn't matter, these constructions will soon be widely known within the troops and cannot be kept secret. Please invite the advisors to come in and observe!"

  "I hastened to interject: 'Please let the advisors come in and observe, they can also be asked for more suggestions, but as for the other two people who are unclear, we should try our best to stop them from entering the rehearsal area.'"

  "How did they intercept? They came with General Falkenhausen?"

  Yang Jie said: "Let's go together, see the situation and act accordingly. You all hide your observations and analysis records, pretend you haven't observed anything yet. Let's go, we're going to block Falkenhausen."

  I followed the generals to greet the German advisors and went through another round of European-style mutual introductions that I found repulsive.

  "This is a confidential military restricted area, of course, members of the advisory group can enter to observe, but the artillery exercise has ended and the officers are preparing to start evaluating. Welcome advisors to offer valuable suggestions. As for these two gentlemen?"

  "This is Captain Pochhammer, Naval Attaché of the General Staff, and this is Mr. Schulze, Second Secretary of the German Embassy; Captain Pochhammer has come to see Mr. Sung Tzu-an regarding technical exchanges in naval matters. Mr. Schulze is responsible for economic relations between the two countries and has accompanied us here."

  It turns out that the naval officer was an intelligence officer of the German military, and the other one should also be an intelligence personnel. However, the first one came to find me, so I had to take over and entertain him; while the second one clearly decided not to entertain in the eyes of Chiang and Yang, so he negotiated with Falkenhausen again.

  "We are only obligated to receive the formally dispatched advisory team members from your side and observe confidential military actions, so we can only say sorry to the two gentlemen!"

  I avoided a cold reception and hastily walked up to the front desk: "General Falkenhausen, nice to see you again after so long."

  "Are you Song? It's been a long time since we last met, and if you have some free time, I'd like to continue our conversation."

  I smiled wryly and replied: "The honor is all mine."

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